The Cleaning – Stage 1a: Distraction

Last night I went through all my magazines and books that were lying under the coffee table, and made some interesting discoveries. Apparently I have more knitting magazines than I realized, for one. I reacquainted myself with some of my knitting books that I hadn’t looked at in some time, too, specifically Mason-Dixon Knitting.

Well, I should also mention that I decided to do this cleaning because I’m feeling unsatified with my knitting. I completed the two things I set out to complete (wedding shawl and sockapalooza socks), but the remaining WIPs I have aren’t thrilling me. I have a mostly completed Juno, with only half of the cabled collar to finish, but I don’t feel like cabling now, and wool + summer = bad. I have 2/3 of a Conwy sock for my sister, but I discovered that it may be too small for her. Some creative blocking will be necessary. So, that is in time out. Then, the apricot jacket decided to taunt me, because of my previous comments about the pattern: “I’m a pretty experienced knitter, so this pattern shouldn’t give me any problems, even if it is poorly translated German.” The apricot jacket said, “HA! I heard that! You’re screwed.” So, it too is in time out. Then, with these two sort-of-failures under my belt, I started some Charade socks for me in Koigu. They are going quite well, but aren’t satisfying me like I’d hoped.

This story has a point. So, I was looking through my pile of knitting books and magazines, and I read through Mason-Dixon Knitting until I got to the part about log cabin blankets. Angels sang, a ray of sunlight descended down from the sky, and I immediately cast on for a blanket. I have 15 million balls of leftover sock yarn to use up. It is going splendidly so far, and already I can tell that log cabin blankets are like crack. You just can’t stop doing it.